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From Letter 1:
...Robin Givhan wrote, without irony, that looking at Clinton's breasts felt voyeuristic and that her small, "not unseemly" amount of cleavage is the equivalent of a man's unzipped fly, as if Clinton deserved the sexualized attention thanks to a shameful social faux pas....Presumably, then, she doesn't wear low-cut tops! Or is she insisting that the world be magically transformed so that women can wear anything and no one will talk about what they are wearing or even think about their bodies? If that transformation were possible, would we want it?
When I am at work, as a young woman often surrounded by older men, I want my mind to be on display and my body to be relatively invisible....
Letter 2:
What's next? An article on viewing men's crotches generally or seeing a difference when they are watching her speak?There should, of course, be corresponding writing about men's clothing and any sexual messages it may communicate. I note that male Senators wear such extremely conventional clothing that it's very hard to find anything sexual about it or, in fact, much of anything interesting to say about it.
The first two letters are trying to work the theory that you wouldn't treat men with such disrespect, but both letter writers fumble with the problem that there is no equivalent thing that a man would do. Both resort to referring to a predicament that might happen without intentionality. An open fly and a noticeable erection are scarcely parallel to a woman's chosen low-cut top. If the Post had published an article about menstrual blood stains on a female politician's skirt, the first 2 letter writers would have a good point.
But Givhan herself brought up the subject of a man's open fly:
The cleavage... is an exceptional kind of flourish. After all, it's not a matter of what she's wearing but rather what's being revealed. It's tempting to say that the cleavage stirs the same kind of discomfort that might be churned up after spotting Rudy Giuliani with his shirt unbuttoned just a smidge too far. No one wants to see that. But really, it was more like catching a man with his fly unzipped. Just look away!She goes on to speak of a female politician in Britain who showed much more cleavage and to deal with the way showing just a little cleavage creates ambiguity about whether it was intended. ("With Clinton, there was the sense that you were catching a surreptitious glimpse at something private. You were intruding -- being a voyeur.") Givhan is analyzing the complex gesture of showing but only showing a little: The possibility that it is unintentional or not meant to imply sexuality makes the viewer uncomfortable. This is a sly political joke: Clinton is "tentative" and "noncommittal" in "matters of style."
Letter 3:
Robin Givhan's attempts to turn Hillary Clinton's choice of a scoop-necked shirt on a hot day in the District into social commentary failed miserably. Givhan crossed the line by suggesting that the shirt revealed Clinton's changing comfort level with her sexuality....The "hot day" explanation is quite silly. The Capitol building clearly must be air-conditioned to the point where all the men are comfortable in suits and in no danger of sweating, so there is no way the low-cut top was serving an important summertime physical need. In any case, Clinton was wearing a jacket too. How desperately hot could she have been? Is cleavage some special heat vent?
Letter 4:
Most disturbing... was the misogynistic tone Givhan took, most notably with her comment, "No one wants to see that . . . Just look away!" It really should come as no surprise that women tend to have breasts. With breasts come cleavage. They are part of the female body...This is a rhetorical move I've seen before. Talking about how a woman has chosen to highlight her breasts is portrayed as an objection to the woman's having breasts at all. And one is called misogynistic. But good Lord! What a misreading! Givhan's "Just look away!" didn't express her distaste for breasts. The next paragraph expresses enthusiasm for the British home secretary with the lavish display of cleavage! "Just look away" was Givhan's impression of what Hillary seemed to be saying with the "tentative" cleavage.
Letter 5:
I can't decide what horrifies me more: that The Post, which I have often touted for its intelligent reporting, would publish such a sexist, dated article, or even worse, that the author was echoing a common viewpoint still prevalent in society.So women should wear clothes that "represent who they are," but it's wrong to analyze this self expression? Your "clothes represent [your] style -- not how much skin is exposed"? What does that mean? The style of your clothes obviously includes the way it covers some parts and not others. Once you concede that clothes express the inner self, it follows that we should try to understand the meaning of the clothing worn by a person who seeks political power. Why would you censor this valuable line of inquiry?
As a mother and a professional analyst for the government, I have always believed that my colleagues have respected my work, my mind and my opinions, not whether my cleavage was showing. I dress as I believe all women should: with the ability to choose clothes that represent who they are, be they feminine, nurturing, intelligent, sexy or fashionable. But I do so with the hope that clothes represent my style -- not how much skin is exposed.


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By Monte Morin, Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES — It's well-known that cigarettes are bad for your health, but does smoking make you more likely to kill yourself too?
In a paper published this week in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research, authors argued that smoking and suicide may be more closely related than previously thought.
The researchers analyzed suicide rates in states that aggressively implemented anti-smoking policies from 1990 to 2004 and compared them to suicide rates in states that had more relaxed policies.
Those states that imposed cigarette excise taxes and smoke-free air regulations had lower adjusted suicide rates than did states with fewer anti-smoking initiatives, authors wrote.
"There does seem to be a substantial reduction in the risk for suicide after these policies are implemented," said lead study author Richard Grucza, a psychiatric epidemiologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
"For every dollar in excise taxes there was actually a 10 percent decrease in the relative risk for suicide," Grucza told Washington University BioMed Radio. "The smoke-free air policies were also very strongly associated with reduced suicide risk."
Study authors said that states with lower taxes on cigarettes and more lax policies on public smoking had suicide rates that were up to 6 percent greater than the national average.
This is not the first study to document a correlation between cigarette smoking and suicide, but it is among the first to suggest smoking and nicotine may be specific factors.
Up until now, researchers believed smoking coincided with suicide because people with psychiatric problems or substance abuse problems were more likely to smoke as well as to commit suicide.
"Markedly elevated rates of smoking are found among people with anxiety disorders, alcohol and drug dependence, schizophrenia, and other diagnoses, in both clinical and general studies," authors wrote. "However, it is also possible that smoking is not merely a marker for psychiatric disorders, but rather directly increases the risk for such disorders, which in turn increases the risk for suicide."
Grucza said that the imposition of anti-smoking rules presented the researchers with a naturally occurring experiment. However, the authors did note that there were limitations on their research.
In particular, they said that since they considered state-imposed anti-smoking efforts only, their research would not account for local-level policies aimed at smoking behavior.
"While further studies may be required to establish a compelling weight of evidence, this study provides strong epidemiological support in its favor of the proposition that smoking is a casual risk factor for suicide," authors wrote.
Photo: DucDigital via Flickr
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subset: commoncrawl


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TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Fire has swept through a prison in Honduras, killing dozens of inmates and leaving some 40 injured.
The head of the national prison system, Danilo Orellana, said the fire broke out Tuesday night at a prison in the town of Comayagua. Officials are investigating the cause of the blaze but two theories are that it was triggered by rioting prisoners or by an electrical short-circuit, he said.
The facility held at least 800 inmates and is located 140 kilometers (90 miles) north of the Central American country's capital, Tegucigalpa.
It is feared that many inmates escaped during the fire, said Hector Ivan Mejia, spokesman for the government's security secretariat.
Radio reports from Comayagua said dozens of prisoners were burned beyond recognition as they were trapped in their cells. The reports said the prison was destroyed by the flames.
Radio Globo, a station in Comayagua, said the death toll exceeded 200, but Honduran authorities would neither confirm nor deny this account.


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Today was a very exciting day, with my first visit to StoryCorps. When the Atlanta location moved to the Atlanta History Center in Buckhead (north Atlanta), I'd talked my mom into going and letting me interview her. I'd set up the appointment a few weeks ago and by last night I'd gotten pretty nervous about it.
Mom and I went out to lunch and then headed into Atlanta. We arrived about an hour an a half early and spent some time in the exhibits at the Atlanta History Center before heading over to the StoryCorps office at McElreath Hall. I've been here before, to research at the Kenan Research Library, so I had a pretty good idea of where I was going.
We arrived at StoryCorps about 15 minutes early, as the website advised. We were greeted by Stephanie, who was extremely nice. She gave us some paperwork to fill out, mostly contact information, and chatted with us before going into the recording room. She made sure we knew a little bit about the mission of StoryCorps and how our recording might be used in the future: stored at the Library of Congress and possibly used on the radio. If we do end up on the radio, StoryCorps will notify us. We also had the option of opting out of sharing all together and simply taking home a copy of the recording, with all other copies destroyed.
Once settled at the microphones, Stephanie explained the process: first, a sound check and a reminder to face the microphones when talking (which also had Mom and I facing each other). The recording would start with me, as I introduced myself, giving the date, location and the name of my interviewee; then my mom would do the same. At that point I would ask my first question and we would talk for 40 minutes. Stephanie would remain in the room and signal us when there were 10 and 5 minutes remaining, then give the "wrap up" signal when time was up. If she felt it necessary, Stephanie would also ask questions.
I had given Mom a list of questions that I planned to ask a few weeks ago, so that she would feel more prepared to answer them. We had talked a little bit about each topic, though not enough to make our conversation sound rehearsed or prevent her from giving me any new stories.
We talked about memories from mom's childhood, from the cold war and the Cuban Missile Crises and John F Kennedy's assassination, to women's changing roles in society, to the Vietnam War. For the most part, the experience ran very smoothly as we went from topic to topic. I forgot what additional questions I wanted to ask near the end, but came up with a new topic after a moment. I think I was nervous about running over time and my brain kind of stopped for a minute. Stephanie only asked a question once, at the very end, to ask about what sort of activities and social events mom took part in as a child. It was a great question and mom had an
interesting answer that I appreciated hearing. When we were done, Stephanie complimented mom on her answers, saying that she gave great details without needing to be prompted. I thought mom did an awesome job!
As a copy of our interview was burned onto a CD, our photos were taken and then we signed a release form. In a few weeks we'll be emailed a unique interview number for our recording at the Library of Congress. If we're ever in DC, we'll be able to listen to our story at the LoC. And while the StoryCorps experience is free, everyone is encouraged to make a donation, which we did. As an added bonus, we also received free admission to the Atlanta History Center. We'd already paid for our visit today, so we received a free invitation for another day.
All together, our visit to StoryCorps Atlanta was a great experience. I'm really glad that Mom and I did this, and I would encourage others to do it too.


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Austrian Pine (Pinus nigra)
Austrian Pine Species Description
These plants are from foreign areas (those that occur outside of North America north of Mexico) that have been released intentionally or unintentionally. Plants that have been disseminated or escaped as a result of human activity, and become established somewhere within the United States, Canada or Greenland.
Allergenicity: No allergy has been reported for Austrian Pine (Pinus nigra) species.
Pollination: Occurs in following seasons depending on latitude and elevation: Spring.
Gymnosperm: Any plant such as a conifer whose seeds are not enclosed in an ovary.
Tree: A large plant, not exactly defined, but typically over four meters in height, a single trunk which grows in girth with age and branches (which also grow in circumference with age).
Weed: Any plant growing in cultivated ground to the injury of the crop or desired vegetation, or to the disfigurement of the place; an unsightly, useless, or injurious plant.
Perennial: Living for many years.
Woody Stem: Non-herbaceous. Lignified.
Evergreen: Retaining leaves throughout the year including changing seasons.
Austrian Pine Species Usage
Related Links
More Austrian Pine (Pinus nigra) imagesby Jessie M. Harris from BONAP


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I'm currently brewing an apple wine. I started it at 1.080, and when that was finished I added another 1.020. Now it has been sitting on it's yeast cake for about one month, and I'm considering if I should add another addition (to max out the yeast and allow for some sweetening) or not.
Is it detrimental to add more sugar now? As in, will the fermentation be weak and stressed? Should I siphon the wine off the cake and add it without the yeast cake? Should I just not mix it after addition, so as not to bring the trub into suspension?


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Last year Exodus International, a Christian group that regards homosexuality as sinful, expressed that view in a software app created for Apple Inc.'s iPhone. Over 150,000 people contacted Apple to protest the app. In response, Apple barred the software from its online store.
A victory for tolerance? Perhaps. But as Internet policy maven Rebecca MacKinnon warns in an important new book, Apple's decision should serve as a warning that the liberating power of digital technology is under threat from corporations and governments alike.
MacKinnon divides her book into five sections, clearly laying out the problem, with abundant illustrations taken from recent events. She argues that neither political action nor competitive pressure spawned by the free market will protect our rights, finally making a strong case for a third way - a nongovernmental watchdog with sufficient clout to preserve freedom on the Internet.
That corporations are part of the problem should come as no surprise. MacKinnon points out that Apple, Facebook, Google, Amazon.com, and other giant companies often adopt corporate policies that threaten freedom or limit people's access to controversial ideas. For instance, the controversial WikiLeaks website, famed for publishing government secrets, was hosted on servers owned by Amazon, until Senator Joseph Lieberman complained about it. Amazon promptly ousted WikiLeaks. As a business, Amazon is entitled to pick and choose its customers, just as Apple is free to reject any iPhone app. But at what cost to free speech?
And don't count on laws or regulations to save the day, she points out. Even democratic governments of all sorts are asserting control over the global Internet, in the name of fighting data piracy, eliminating child pornography, or tracking down terrorists. In the process, they are embracing the same methods used by authoritarian governments.
MacKinnon notes that a decade ago, only a handful of regimes, like those of China and Saudi Arabia, imposed nationwide government controls over Internet access. Today, about 40 countries do so, including the United Kingdom, France, India, and the Netherlands.
And the United States is not immune. Consider the Stop Online Piracy Act recently under consideration by Congress. An early version of the bill would have required Internet providers to block websites hosting pirated music or movies. This would have required US Internet services to apply the same tools used by the Chinese government to block news items about Tibet. In addition, the blocking policy would have neutralized an Internet security system designed to protect consumers from fake websites run by criminals. It took a massive public protest, largely conducted on the Internet, to get the measure scrapped.
Indeed, MacKinnon thinks this kind of grass-roots activism is our best chance of keeping the Internet free. She calls for a global campaign to defend Internet freedom in much the same way organizations such as Amnesty International defend human rights. The seeds of such a global initiative have already been planted. There are a host of US nonprofits devoted to the cause, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology, and these have counterparts around the globe.
She also cites the Global Network Initiative, an alliance of activists like MacKinnon and technology titans Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. The three member companies have vowed to do business in a manner that protects their users' rights to free speech and privacy. The companies have also agreed to regular "human rights audits'' to confirm that they are living up to their standards.
It may not sound like much, partly because it isn't. Plenty of other Internet companies haven't embraced these principles. But more of them might, if their customers and shareholders began to insist. And that is the heart of MacKinnon's final message: "We have a responsibility to hold the abusers of digital power to account. . . . If we do not, when we awake one morning to discover that our freedoms have eroded beyond recognition, we will have only ourselves to blame.''
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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In a seeker's Bible discussion last week, I had explained that God created the physical world and, therefore, existed outside the physical world. I stated that He entered into the physical world in His incarnation. It seemed that God would not have a physical form until then.
However, Adam and Eve are said to have walked with God in the garden. Furthermore, it would seem that God spoke to Abraham regarding the destruction of Sodom. It is also believed by many that the fourth person in the fiery furnace was the pre-incarnate Christ. Moses also saw the glory of God. Jacob wrestled with God. Isaiah saw the throne of God.
However, this brings up the question of how God could have a physical appearance prior to His incarnation. Were the instances where people were enabled to see spiritual things with physical eyes?


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Following the Aurora shooting we get the inevitable silliness from a feminist troubled by the disproportion between men shielding their girlfriends from bullets and women shielding their boyfriends from bullets.
I admire the self-refuting nature of her presentation. She advances both of these propositions:
(1) Heroism has never had a gender: just tell that to Harriet Tubman, Clara Barton, or any of the female soldiers who risk their lives daily in our military;
and, following a mention of the United 93 action on 9/11,
(2) We just know it feels good to have heroes and it feels good to sit down on an airplane and think, "Maybe there is someone like Todd Beamer on this flight."
Do men really sit and hope that someone else will be Todd Beamer? My impression is that we aspire to be Todd Beamer, if situationally appropriate. As to women's aspirations, well, the author just described hers. Which is fine - if she is 120 pounds of coiled literary angst, she may not be the best choice to grapple with a trained terrorist anyway.
As to her point - if "heroism" includes moral courage, as it should, then women are well represented by examples from history. If heroism is limited to brief displays of physical courage, there are surely many more examples involving men. That seems to follow from both cultural norms and basic biology, since the average guy is bigger and stronger than the average women.
That said, absolutely no one is surprised when a mother is physically fierce in protecting her children, as exemplified by Patricia Legarreta, who rallied her two young ones out of the Aurora theater (with help from a young man!) after her boyfriend cut and ran.
And Todd Beamer had help from the stewardesses on United 93. But let's read about some of the guys who took the lead in the scuffling:
This much we know, they were big guys: Bingham was a 6-foot-4 rugby player; Glick, also a rugby player and judo champion; Beamer was 6 foot 1 and 200 pounds, and Nacke was a 5-foot-9, 200-pound weightlifter with a "Superman" tattoo on his shoulder.
Logic, biology and cultural norms all pointed to letting the men lead the way on United 93, and in many other moments of sudden physical peril.


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Boston EO
By Independent RGP Labs (1 Lens)Boston EO Product Information
Rigid Gas Permeable lenses are small, slightly flexible lenses that are custom designed to fit your eyes and can be made in a wide range of parameters. RGPs correct astigmatism and provide sharp clear vision. Boston EO lenses have a patented, ultra-smooth, non-stick surface that resists dirt and debris so lenses stay fresh and comfortable.
Price above includes standard sphere lens only. Additional charges applied for non-sphere lens prescriptions and special coatings.How to Order RGP Lenses:
- Select the quantity you want to purchase for each eye.
- Indicate desired tint for the lens in the "Color" drop down box. If only one color is listed, that is the only tint available.
- Click "Add to Cart" and then go to "Checkout."
- If your prescription requires a non-sphere lens type (Supercone, Bi-Toric, Toric, Front Toric, Back Toric, Rose K) please indicate which type in the "Special Comments or Instructions" box. Please note that non-sphere lenses are priced at $94.90 per lens.
- Indicate if plasma coating is desired. Please note that there is an additional $12 charge.


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Having trouble getting online? Call your provider
(AP) — Having trouble getting online? Some may find their smartphones working overtime because their computers couldn't seem to connect to the Internet on Monday morning.
Thousands waited too long or simply didn't believe the warnings of malware that took over computers around the world more than a year ago. At 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT), the FBI turned off the Internet servers that were functioning as a temporary safety net to keep infected computers online for the past eight months. The court order the agency had gotten to keep the servers running expired, and it was not renewed.
Now, if your computer is infected, your only hope is your Internet service provider's help desk.
In South Korea, there were no reports from affected computers Monday. As many as 80 computers there are believed to be infected with the malware that may cause problems in Web surfing, down from 1,798 computers in February, according to the government.
"The impact will be limited," said Lee Sang-hun, head of network security at the Korea Communications Commission, a government body. The government and private broadband providers opened helplines and issued warnings. They also asked users to check if their computers were infected and to download antivirus software. South Korea is one of the most wired countries in the world, with more than 90 percent of households connected to broadband Internet.
The problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of more than 570,000 infected computers around the world. When the FBI went in to take down the hackers late last year, agents realized that if they turned off the malicious servers being used to control the computers, all the victims would lose their Internet service.
In a highly unusual move, the FBI set up the safety net. They brought in a private company to install two clean Internet servers to take over for the malicious servers so that people would not suddenly lose their Internet.
And they arranged for a private company to run a website, www.dcwg.org, to help computer users determine whether their computer was infected and find links to other computer security business sites where they could find fixes for the problem.
From the onset, most victims didn't even know their computers had been infected, although the malicious software probably slowed their web surfing and disabled their antivirus software, making their machines more vulnerable to other problems.
Efforts to solve the issue have been hindered a bit by a few factors: Many computer users don't fully understand the technologically complex machines they use every day to send e-mail, shop, and surf for information. The cyber world of viruses, malware, bank fraud and Internet scams is often distant and confusing, and warning messages may go unseen or unheeded.
And other people simply don't trust the U.S. government, and believe that federal authorities are only trying to spy on them, or take over the Internet, by pushing solutions to the infection. Blogs and other Internet forums are riddled with postings warning of the government using the malware as a ploy to breach American citizens' computers — a charge that the FBI and other cybersecurity experts familiar with the malware quickly denounced as ridiculous.
There is an underlying sense that this has been much ado about nothing — like the hoopla over Y2K, when the transition to the year 2000 presented technical problems and fears that some computers would stop working because they were not set up for the date change. In the end there were very few problems.
FBI officials have been tracking the number of computers they believe still may be infected by the malware. Worldwide, the total is roughly 250,000 infected. The numbers have been steadily declining, and recent efforts by Internet service providers may limit the problems Monday.
Tom Grasso, an FBI supervisory special agent, said many Internet providers have plans to try to help their customers. And some may put technical solutions in place Monday that will correct the server problem. It they do that, the Internet will work, but the malware will remain on victims' computers and could pose future problems.
Other Internet providers have simply braced for the calls to their help lines.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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One day, Mica Angela Hendricks, a professional illustrator, bought a new sketchbook. Her 4-year old daughter liked it and added her own contributions. Soon the two were working together, each, Ms. Hendricks insists, adding essential elements:
Sometimes I would give her suggestions, like "maybe she could have a dragon body!" but usually she would ignore theses suggestions if it didn't fit in with what she already had in mind. But since I am a grownup and a little bit (okay a lot) of a perfectionist, I sometimes would have a specific idea in mind as I doodled my heads. Maybe she could make this into a bug! I'd think happily to myself as I sketched, imagining the possibilities of what it could look like. So later, when she'd doodle some crazy shape that seemed to go in some surrealistic direction, or put a large circle around the creature and filled the WHOLE THING in with marker, part of my brain would think, What is she DOING?!? She's just scribbling it all up! But I should know that in most instances, kids' imaginations way outweigh a grownup's, and it always ALWAYS looked better that what I had imagined. ALWAYS.


text:
Who said science can't be yummy? Let your kids explore their senses with this blind taste and smell test using ice cream. Ice cream gets turned into a science experiment with this simple and oh so yummy experiment. Teaching about the five senses has always been one of my favorite themes and I guarantee your kids will love this science lesson too. I have also done this with plain yogurt and natural food flavoring if ice cream isn't an option. You can use a blindfold if your child will tolerate it, my son doesn't like them and a simple " If you peak the activity is over." was enough to keep his eyes glued shut during the experiment.
- Gather your materials. You will need multiple flavors of ice cream, a sheet of paper, markers, peel off labels, cups to conceal the ice cream containers and one or more spoons. These tiny single serve Hagen-Daz were perfect for this and the left overs weren't too plentiful.
- Number your cups.
- Make a basic graph, you could make it on the computer and print it out but there is no need for perfection, just fun and learning.
- Write the flavor on the chart and cover with labels. Your child will peel these off after all the tests and predictions are recorded.
- Place the ice cream in the cups with the correct number. Can you tell I had a little pre taste test taste of some ? Can you blame me?
- Invite your child to begin the test. Explain why you want them to have their eyes closed, not just because you want to keep it a secret from them, but because when you aren't using one sense the others work harder.
- Smell the first and make a prediction. My son inherited my accurate sniffer, he was like "That is mango , I know it!"
- Taste.
- Repeat. I was fascinated by his ability to recognize smell and taste as well as his honest aversion to peanut butter. Seriously who doesn't love peanut butter? My kid.
- Fill your graph in as you go.
- After all the tests – peel and reveal! He loved this part almost as much as tasting them. He was shocked that #2 was caramel not vanilla!
- Choose your favorite to have as an after experiment snack! Chocolate won out at our house.
Great 5 Senses Book!
all book lists include affiliate links
Look, Listen, Taste, Touch, and Smell: Learning About Your Five Sensesby Pamela Hill Nettleton is a really great find. The book doesn't separate the senses, instead the author explains all the ways the senses work in specific situations. My son was intrigued by the ideas of smores and kept telling me "I want to smell and taste some smores Mommy, please!" I liked how it explained the connection between the areas of our bodies we associated with the senses ( mouth, eyes, nose, skin and ears) and the brain. The author succeeds in making it accessible for young kids but not boring for older ones. Good Find!!


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Finding Peace and Letting Go in Swansea, Wales
Feb 21, 2024
Meditations to Make Our Life Happy and Meaningful
By Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
Also available as an audiobook on CD
This perennial bestseller is a perfect handbook for daily meditation.
Written especially for the modern reader who is trying to incorporate a meditation practice into a busy lifestyle, it guides us through a sequence of 21 meditations, known as lamrim, that lead to an experience of true inner peace.
These meditations enrich our lives by helping us to develop special qualities such as mental clarity, kindness, patience, and insight. They empower us to deal positively with any situation we meet, gradually becoming a source of inspiration and joy for others.
With more and more people turning to the inner science of meditation to solve life's problems this book is an indispensable companion.
"During this time of international tension and terrorism, when governments and groups justify violence as a legitimate means of achieving peaceful ends, Gyatso's Buddhist perspective is particularly refreshing . . . Geshe Kelsang Gyatso's words provide a stimulatingly peaceful perspective." — FOREWORD MAGAZINE
Buy this book from Tharpa Canada
Buy this book from Tharpa UK (Rest of World)
How to Meditate
Each of the twenty-one meditation practices has five parts: preparation, contemplation, meditation, dedication, and subsequent practice. The instructions that explain these twenty-one meditation practices are called the "stages of the path", or "Lamrim". The realizations of these meditations are the actual spiritual paths that lead us to the great liberation of full enlightenment.
The first part, the preparatory practices, prepare us for successful meditation by purifying hindrances caused by our previous negative actions, by accumulating merit (or good fortune), and by enabling us to receive the blessings of enlightened beings. The preparatory practices are very important if we wish to gain deep experience of these meditations. For this purpose, we can begin our meditation with Prayers for Meditation, which can be found in Appendix I. A commentary to these practices can be found in Appendix II.
The purpose of the second part, contemplation, or analytical meditation, is to bring to mind the object of placement meditation. We do this by considering various lines of reasoning, contemplating analogies, and reflecting on the meaning of the instructions. It is helpful to memorize the contemplations given in each section so that we can meditate without having to look at the text. The contemplations given here are intended only as guidelines. We should supplement and enrich them with whatever reasons and examples we find helpful.
When, through our contemplations, the object appears clearly, we leave our analytical meditation and concentrate on the object single-pointedly. This single-pointed concentration is the third part, the actual meditation.
When we first start to meditate, our concentration is poor; we are easily distracted and often lose our object of meditation. Therefore, to begin with, we shall probably need to alternate between contemplation and placement meditation many times in each session. For example, if we are meditating on compassion, we begin by contemplating the various sufferings experienced by living beings until a strong feeling of compassion arises in our heart.
When this feeling arises, we meditate on it single-pointedly. If the feeling fades, or if our mind wanders to another object, we should return to analytical meditation to bring the feeling back to mind. When the feeling of compassion has been restored, we once again leave our analytical meditation and hold the feeling with single-pointed concentration.
Both contemplation and meditation serve to acquaint our mind with virtuous objects.
The more familiar we are with such objects, the more peaceful our mind becomes. By training in meditation, and living in accordance with the insights and resolutions developed during meditation, eventually we shall be able to maintain a peaceful mind continuously, throughout our life. More detailed instructions on the contemplations and on meditation in general can be found in Transform Your Life and Joyful Path of Good Fortune.
At the end of each session, we dedicate the merit produced by our meditation towards the attainment of enlightenment. If merit is not dedicated, it can easily be destroyed by anger. By reciting the dedication prayers sincerely at the end of each meditation session, we ensure that the merit we created by meditating is not wasted but acts as a cause of enlightenment.
The fifth part of each meditation practice is the subsequent practice. This consists of advice on how to integrate the meditation into our daily life. It is important to remember that Dharma practice is not confined to our activities during the meditation session; it should permeate our whole life.
We should not allow a gulf to develop between our meditation and our daily life, because the success of our meditation depends upon the purity of our conduct outside the meditation session. We should keep a watch over our mind at all times by applying mindfulness, alertness, and conscientiousness; and we should try to abandon whatever bad habits we may have.
Deep experience of Dharma is the result of practical training over a long period of time, both in and out of meditation. Therefore, we should practise steadily and gently, without being in a hurry to see results.
To summarize, our mind is like a field. Engaging in the preparatory practices is like preparing the field by removing obstacles caused by past negative actions, making it fertile with merit, and watering it with the blessings of the holy beings. Contemplation and meditation are like sowing good seeds, and dedication and subsequent practice are the methods for ripening our harvest of Dharma realizations.
© Geshe Kelsang Gyatso & New Kadampa Tradition


text: Steal The Wheel 10 17 13.7.16 Steal The Wheel episode 10 is an enchanting and exciting point and click type new escape game developed by ENA Game Studio for free. Visualize a situation there was a Ninja racer team in the city. One of the Ninja in the gang was arrested by police due to over speed. The Ninja team who planned to steal the nine costly SPARKO branded bike in different places. But the team need their gang member help, who was in prison.As you are the Ninja racer to escape that Ninja from the prison.If you have the good problem solving nature, it is sure that you will succeed by finding the necessary objects and solving the puzzles. Have greater excitement and fun by playing escape games daily. Good Luck and Best wishes from escape games. Play This Game por EnaGames


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By Tony Wright
Clive Palmer could not have appeared more content if a dozen hand-maidens had appeared bearing racks of pork chops, a gallon or so of caramelised banana and coconut ice-cream, the keys to a 1939 Maybach limousine and Tony Abbott's head on a plate.
He reclined mightily upon a leather chaise longue at the entrance to the Senate chamber as the formerly mighty paid obeisance, begging his mercy.
Here came Eric Abetz, leader of the government in the Senate; Mitch Fifield, manager of government business in the Senate; Simon Birmingham, parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Environment; all of them very nearly falling to their knees. A swirl of harried government advisers circled and whispered, knowing there was no escape for their masters.
Clive Palmer had no pity to dispense.
His eyes were dead to the presence of the supplicants, his ears closed to their pleading.
Repeal the carbon tax today? No chance.
He drew around him his little band of senators, instructing them on their duty. Glenn Lazarus, Jacqui Lambie, Dio Wang. And his outrider, Ricky Muir.
He cocked an ear towards Ben Oquist, once a power within the Australian Greens and now a strategy director at the Australia Institute think tank and, seated at Clive's left hand, an unlikely but well-informed well of advice on how to drive the Senate mad.
With the clock ticking down, Palmer issued his instructions and dismissed all with the merest flick of those eyes.
Flocks of photographers milled beyond the windows, watched by security guards, frustrated beyond cursing.
Byzantine parliamentary regulations forbade them the opportunity to capture a frame of this astonishing picture, the like of which had not been seen in 113 years of Australia's federation: a would-be potentate orchestrating the humiliation of a government without even the pretence of doing it, like traditional warlords of the once-powerful parties, from behind closed doors. It was as if Labor's 36 faceless men of 1963 had been revisited in reverse.
And while all around wore serious suits and smart little business frocks, the big man lounged in chinos and a checked shirt unbuttoned halfway to his belly. An emperor in clothes of his own choosing.
Palmer, a member of the House of Representatives, could not enter the Senate. He did not need to. His presence just beyond the doors resonated as the string of a bow throughout the chamber. He was playing them all.
Precisely three years previously, on July 10, 2011, then prime minister Julia Gillard and her treasurer Wayne Swan stood in the National Press Club and detailed a package of compensation that would shower $15 billion of compensation on households in a vain attempt to save Labor from asphyxiation by carbon tax.
These years later, Prime Minister Tony Abbott was all cocked, ready to celebrate the anniversary with the Senate poised to finally kill the carbon tax that had granted him government.
And here was Clive Palmer, a mining man who has no love of the tax and less for Tony Abbott, instructing his little band of Senators to ruin the prime minister's day and to show the whole country who was the new master of time.
There would be no repeal. Not today.
Beyond the chamber's doors, Clive Palmer, an emperor in a check shirt, was content. The Senate was his. So was Tony Abbott's head. In absentia. On a plate.


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Let $(X, \omega)$ be a symplectic manifold of dimension $2n$ and $\omega$ is an exact symplectic form i.e. $\omega = -d\alpha$. Let furthermore $M \subset X$ be a compact Lagrangian submanifold such that $\alpha = 0$ of $TX|_{M}$. I am interested in the following questions:
Is there a unique polarisation defined on $X$ near $M$ which is transversal to $M$ and whose one form is $\alpha$ ? By polarisation I mean the following: A polarisation of a symplectic manifold $X$, with symplectic form $\omega$, is a smooth assignment of a Lagrangian subspace of $T_{x}X$ to each $x \in X$ in such a way that this assignment is integrable.
If 1. is true, is there a symplectic diffeomorpism $\Phi$ of a neigbourhood of $M$ is $X$ with a neigbourhood of $M$ in its cotangent bundle which carries the leaves of the polarisation into the standard cotangent fibration of $T^{*}M$ ?
Actually I know that these results are true. I would like to see the proof of them. Are there any references where I can look them up?


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On Street Harassment, Victim Blaming & Life in My Skin
It's funny in a horrifying I might start crying kind of way to think about how many times I've experienced extreme sexism/misogyny from perfect strangers. I'm always boggled at how willing people are to excuse their behavior & claim I should have been nicer, or that they're sick and don't know any better. I remember a guy tried to grab me on an empty train car in high school, I kicked the shit out of him & ran like hell. For a host of reasons I was afraid to tell my parents about what happened, but when I told some friends about it the next day I remember a girl I only kind of knew shutting down the victim blaming comments by saying "Girls get raped on the train." and that the way she said it was so *knowing* you know? I never asked for her story. She didn't offer it either. But then I was already a survivor so I guess I didn't need it to understand.
Fast forward a few years from that age & I can tell you a dozen more "extreme" stories that happened in between, but the ones that stick out most all have a theme of me being engaged in my life when misogyny dropped in for a visit. There was the guy in Germany who tried to trap me in a dark tunnel with his car (I jumped on the hood & ran like my life depended on it, maybe it did) and there was no conversation between us. He yelled at me in German from a moving car then drove around to bar my way. There was the guy that followed me home from the store one night telling me that he could be a rapist. He didn't speak to me in the store & our conversation outside consisted of me walking past him & him yelling at me that I was a stuck up bitch. The guy that called me everything but a child of God, because I wouldn't buy his CD came at me on a bus & no one (including his friend) said shit to stop him. Or the group of men who surrounded me while I was walking with my child that had to be backed off by a neighbor with a gun.
How many times exactly does someone have to be insulted, harassed, or terrorized before the conversation can be about the person who accosted them & not about what else they could have done? Should have done? How many incidents (all with different people, different settings, different responses) does it take before the discussion is about ways to stop the harassers & not ways to respond to them so that they maybe, possibly, if you're lucky won't escalate? When do we talk about the culture that not only permits these behaviors, but encourages them & punishes victims for being wary of new people after years of bad experiences? When do we talk about why women are cautioned to be nice, to be patient, to be careful, but never told it is okay to say no & mean it without fear of repercussions? Oh right, those are all hard topics for hard days & folks would rather blame victims than address problems.


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The long summer is over (it's been over for a while, but Autumn only kicked in a couple of days ago, like someone shifted a load of recycling and found the big red button marked 'Chilly/Damp' and said oh there it is and pressed it).
I hardly managed any meetings over the summer, mainly because I was looking after two small children, and also most telly people are either on holiday, looking after their small children or drunk at the Edinburgh Television Festival. Okay, fine, some of them are actually making television programmes, or say they are, it's hard to check, because there are so many channels now. Sometimes they're drunk, looking after small children and making television programmes, which explains a lot.
I did sneak in a couple of meetings towards the end of the summer though. My favourite went like this:
I enter the room. Two producers and a script editor are looking warily at a wodge of stapled paper on a coffee table before them. It has my name on. It is a spec (speculative) sitcom script I wrote!
PRODUCER ONE: At first I thought I didn't like this script very much.
ME: Okay...
PRODUCER ONE: But then I realised I just didn't understand it.
ME: Oh.
Quite a long pause.
PRODUCER TWO: I did understand it!
ME: Huzzah!
PRODUCER TWO: But I definitely didn't like it.
SCRIPT EDITOR: I read it, and I did like it!
ME: Great.
SCRIPT EDITOR: But then I realised I hadn't read it properly, and when I went back and read it again, I realised I hadn't understood it at all, and now I don't like it.
ME: Right.
I reach over and pick the script up, even thought it technically belongs to them, because they printed it out and everything. Slowly I slide it into my bag. No-one tries to stop me.
An awkward silence follows. Finally:
ME: Okay, was this it, because this is turning out to be quite a depressing-
PRODUCER ONE: Oh, wait, we liked the other thing you sent us!
PRODUCER TWO: Yes! That was much more our sort of thing.
ME: Huzzah again!
SCRIPT EDITOR pulls a hitherto-hidden cord and lots of balloons fall from a net in the ceiling. We all jump around for ages to the sound of Taylor Swift's 'Shake It Off'. Eventually we all sit down, panting, and a runner takes all the balloons away.
PRODUCER ONE: Okay, I have two things I would like to say about this idea. In which order would you like them?
ME: Do the second one first.
PRODUCER ONE: Very well.
PRODUCER TWO giggles.
That last bit really was word for word. And a lot of the first bit. Some of the stuff in the middle was made up to some extent.


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American Heart Association CEO Nancy Brown issued the following comments today on the House Appropriations Committee's approval of a proposed waiver that would allow school districts to withdraw from federal school nutrition standards:
"By giving special interests a seat at the school lunch table, some members of Congress are putting politics before the health of our children. Any attempt to suspend or abolish school meal requirements will undermine parents' efforts to keep their kids healthy and put another generation of children on the highway to heart disease and stroke. It's even more frustrating that an amendment to reverse this food folly, offered today by Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.), was defeated in a straight party-line vote.
Schools, where kids spend most of their days, play a critical role in helping students establish good eating habits, which they desperately need to combat being overweight or obese. Already one third of America's children fall into one of these categories. Hitting the pause button on any of the school lunch standards could mean more of the nation's young will eat their way into this terrible trend.
We also cannot dismiss the progress made so far in providing the nutritious foods that will help the young achieve better long-term health and academic success. A USDA analysis revealed that kids are eating 16 percent more vegetables and 23 percent more fruit when they sit down for their mid-day meal at school. They are also consuming less sugar, fat and sodium. Less salt consumption is particularly important because more young people are developing high blood pressure – once viewed solely as an adult disease.
In addition, cries for more flexibility from schools have and will continue to be met by the USDA. For instance, when schools informed the agency they couldn't obtain the whole grain pastas necessary under the standards, the USDA said traditional pasta could be used for two years until the food industry creates these products. The department is also supporting training sessions to assist schools with the standards and preparation for the Smart Snacks requirement.
We cannot go back to the days when the answer to 'What's for lunch?' was pizza, french fries and chicken nuggets. America's school lunch program works and will help our children live free of heart disease and stroke. Our urgent plea to Congress is to not undo the program's strong progress by putting special interests back on school menus."


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Recreated ZX Spectrum: A must buy for any nostalgia fan
I always went back to it though. I always found myself digging it out, hooking it up and smashing it on the likes of Skool Daze and Chuckie Egg and everybody knows Dizzy right? The simple graphics and recognizable music and sound effects still ring in my ears today. It was a meaningful piece of hardware.
Now though, it's just a relic gathering dust in attics but thanks to developer Steve Wilcox and his team at ELITE, it has been given a brand new lease of life with the Recreated ZX Spectrum, a near perfect revamp of the ever popular home computer from the 1980's. At first I had to download the beta version of the app on my iPad Mini and tapping on it triggered my nostalgia taste buds. Its title screen came hand in hand with the legendary loading screech then I was set free on the games but only a few as I hadn't received the unit yet. I didn't have to wait long and unboxing it was like a second Christmas just for me.
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdIt was just how I remembered it, a small simply designed QWERTY keyboard with grey rubber keys and the embossed Sinclair ZX Spectrum motif at the top with the rainbow stripe logo on the bottom right corner. It is ripped straight out of 1982, I didn't know whether to play with it or place it in my display cabinet. Up top, you have what you would expect, a mini USB port for power, a switch for QWERTY mode or game mode, a Pair button and the on/off button with the battery compartment on the back for your AA's. The Recreated ZX Spectrum links to your devices through Bluetooth and pairing it was a doddle. I was playing Frank Bruno's Boxing in no time...I'm not very good.
Each game came with an intro screen where I could choose whether I wanted to use classic controls using the standard button setup which is way more confusing today than it was in the 80's or a simpler setup which uses only a handful of keys. For the sake of nostalgia, I went with the former. I found that the key press sensitivity was not consistent. Sometimes id press a button to throw a nice left punch but sometimes it wouldn't respond whereas other times it would. It didn't happen often but often enough to cause defeat and with it, frustration. Saying that though, it beat having transparent yet distracting keys displayed on the screen and it felt way better pressing real buttons too.
There is a wealth of games to play with such as Chuckie Egg, Roller coaster, Manic Miner, Saboteur and so much more to start you off with more available upon further updates for the App. Some though you do have to purchase. I was disappointed to see that the infamous Dizzy games and my personal favourite Skool Daze and Back To Skool weren't present but hopefully these will be added in due course.
Perfect recreation of the popular 1980's medium.
Wealth of games with more to come.
Can be used as a QWERTY Keyboard or as a standard ZX Spectrum controller.
Beautifully manufactured, expensive feeling.
Bluetooth connection means it can connect to any device.
Inconsistent key responsiveness.
A lot of games need to be paid for to unlock.
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdThe Recreated ZX Spectrum is a wonderful machine which transports me right back to my childhood. Although far from perfect, Mr Wilcox' passion for the medium is felt throughout the entire device with its high end quality. I bet he and his team are extremely proud of his recreation of such a popular computer as they have done it justice tenfold, a must buy for any nostalgia fan.


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Tips to Help You Slim Down
Add cheese at breakfast
Low in sodium, high in protein (up to 8 grams) and with few calories (60 to 80), cheese sticks have a host of benefits. Eat them as is, or make the flavor last longer by shredding on from top to bottom, into think, dangly strips.
Try tahini instead of peanut butter
Made from ground sesame seeds, this paste is the perfect peanut butter substitute. It has a similar flavor and more filling fiber and calcium but less sugar and saturated fat. Spread it on a sandwich or slather it on apple slices.
Serve salmon for dinner
This lean protein is high in omega-3 fatty acids and free of sugar and starch. Mix it with egg whites, a little bit of mayo and some bread crumbs, form into patties and grill or broil.
Pick pistachios for a snack
You get about 49 per ounce, for just 170 calories. Buying them in the shell and eating them one by one slows you down. By the time you're done, your brain will tell your stomach you're full.
Make substitutions
When cooking or baking, see if you can swap out high-calorie ingredients for lighter options. When making pancakes, for example, replace ¼ to 1/3 cup of flour with ground flaxseed meal. The omega-3 and fiber in flaxseed add nutrients to the dish without changing the taste.
Get moving
Not only can exercise help you lose weight faster, but it can also help you live longer. Every hour you spend camped out watching television after your turn 24 might reduce your lifespan by 22 minutes, according to a study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Join a weight-loss program
There is a 20 percent chance that overweight people will lose at least 5 percent of their body weight when they participate in a supportive, team-based slim-down program, according to a study in the journal Obesity. See if any programs exist in your town.


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4:56 PM, Game, set and match, Schiavone 6-4, 7-6 (2) Well big props to Schiavone for closing out the match like she did. We really dig the whole kissing-the-clay thing. Upping Guga's classic heart by making love to the clay with your mouth, not your racket.
4:41 PM, Schiavone leads 6-4, 6-all There is now the potential for this thing to turn into a high-quality, dramatic three-set affair. Could the WTA actually see its saviors in the games of these two relative unknowns? It's been dang fun to watch such good tennis for two sets and 90 minutes thus far. I'm also digging the extra-cheesy Geico and Billie Jean King commercial.
4:29 PM, Schiavone leads 6-4, 4-all Stosur is tightening up here as the Italian has won the last three games to even up the second set. Can we see the first three-set women's final since 2001?
4:07 PM, Schiavone leads 6-4, 1-2 Loving the NBC editors for their choice of exit-out music for commercials, so far including the SATC2 theme song, Beyonce and Britney. Diva music for two non-divas.
Meanwhile, we're thinking that the Franny Faithful would make a great Jersey Shore spin-off. The hair! The muscles! The sunglasses! Stosur has nothing on these boys.
3:57 PM, Schiavone wins first set 6-4 (Good news!) Schiavone is playing with heart and (bad news!) Stosur is playing with the weight of the world on her shoulders. Let's see if a clean court can give Sammy a clean conscience. (BEST news!) Mary Pierce sighting in the first row of the far side of the court. Like a summer bride, she's wearing all white.
3:46 PM What quality so far! The tennis Tweeters are all a-twitter over the strength of play that these girls are producing out on court. If this would have been a Dementieva-Jankovic final, Elena would already have cried a couple of times and Jelena would be screaming obscenities in Serbian at Snezana, neither players having hit a single winner.
3:33 PM The last time we had such a star-less final was in 2004, when Anastasia Myskina and Elena Dementieva played a disastrous title match. Already this match has been more entertaining than that one, probably because Stosur and Schiavone have much more experience (a combined age of 55) than the two Russians did six years ago (combined age of 44).
Meanwhile, I'm really waiting for the first shot of Mary Pierce. The outfit WILL be fierce!
3:17 PM The boys are really giving the edible facts to start off the match. They better hope the tennis holds so they can talk about the quality of play later. Especially with no Mary to ramble. A few samples: the two ladies played each other at Roland Garros last year in the first round; Stosur is one of the few ladies who wears sunglasses on tour; Schiavone's entire hometown has flown to Paris for the final; and the doubles game is to the quality of tennis as water is to the growth of flowers.
3:02 PM, Paris time Our first shot of the players. Francesca Schiavone looks playful and relaxed in front of the camera and waves to the crowd as she walks out, while Samantha Stosur has a steely look (a al Safina?!) and makes no gesture to the crowd as she approaches her chair.
Johnny Mac and Ted Williams bring the news that there's no Mary Carillo today… no Mary?! Inappropriate.
(photo by arnaud lerondeau via flickr)


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BANGALORE, INDIA — Eastman Kodak filed Monday a court motion seeking approval for confidential bidding for the auction of its digital patent portfolio, that it expects will be completed by August.
Kodak, which filed for bankruptcy in January, entered into a US$950 million financing facility secured by its assets, including some of its digital imaging patents, which it is required to put up for sale this month.
Its attempt to use a "stalking horse" strategy for the customer accounts and images of Kodak Gallery online photo services business did not pay off, as online photo service Shutterfly's $23.8 million bid, the stalking horse bid in this case, emerged as the only bidder. A stalking horse bid sets the minimum price for other bids for a business in an auction.
Kodak now plans to auction off its patents in a process where there will be no disclosure of unsuccessful bidders to other bidders and the public, it said in a statement on Monday. Only the winning bidder and the amount of the successful bid will be announced publicly at the end of the auction, Kodak said. About 20 parties have already signed confidentiality agreements and have been provided access to an electronic data room.
Interest in competitive bidding for the company's digital imaging patent assets has been "chilled" by potential purchasers' reluctance to act as a stalking horse bidder in a conventional, public auction, Kodak said in a filing to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Instead a sales process tailored to sufficiently address possible buyer concern regarding confidentiality and certainty of closing, that a traditional auction process lacks, is necessary to obtain the highest and best price for the company's digital imaging patents, it said.
Kodak is selling two separate portfolios, called the Digital Capture and Kodak Imaging Systems and Services (KISS) portfolios, as they have different characteristics and may interest different buyers, it said.
The Digital Capture Portfolio includes over 700 patents, covering key aspects of image capture, processing, and transmission technologies that are important to the design and operation of digital cameras and multi-function devices, including camera-enabled smartphones and tablets, Kodak said.
The KISS portfolio includes over 400 patents that cover technologies including image analysis, manipulation and tagging, and network-based services, including image storage, access, and fulfillment. Kodak said it has generated more than $3 billion since 2001 from licensing its digital imaging portfolio to companies like Samsung, LG, Motorola, and Nokia. It also has patent infringement cases against Apple, Research In Motion, and HTC.
Kodak, which faced challenges in making the transition to digital technology, has since July been "exploring strategic alternatives" including the sale of its digital imaging patent portfolios.
The company, which at one point said its portfolio was evaluated at up to $2.6 billion by a company interested in licensing the patents, is following in the footsteps of other technology companies who have raised funds through sales of patents.
Bankrupt Nortel Networks raised $4.5 billion through the sale of patents and patent applications to a consortium consisting of Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, RIM and Sony. This auction used the stalking horse strategy, and illustrates the risk that a stalking horse bidder, having revealed important information to its competitors in the process, may still lose at the auction, Kodak said in its filing. Google made the stalking horse bid of $900 million in the Nortel auction.
Kodak expects the motion to approve bidding procedures to be heard by the court on July 2, the auction to be held in early August, and the winning bidders to be announced by Aug. 13. The proposed deadline for submitting preliminary bid documents is July 16.
The sellers propose to sell all or any portion of the digital imaging patents to successful bidders free and clear of all claims and interests, to maximize their value. Holders of claims and interests, if any, will be sufficiently protected by the availability of the proceeds of the sale, Kodak said in its filing.


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Homer resident Mr. John "Jack" Dallas Jump, 65, died Monday, July 1, 2013, at his home in Homer.
Memorial services will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday, July 7, 2013, at the Homer Elks Lodge, 215 W. Jenny Way in Homer. A family and friend memorial service will be held at a later date in Klamath Falls, Ore.
Mr. Jump was born Sept. 4, 1947, in Klamath Falls, Ore. He graduated from Klamath Union High School in 1965. Soon after graduating he joined the U.S. Army, where he served in Vietnam. In 1992 he moved to Homer where he has lived for the past 21 years. He retired from the chip ship supervisor on the Homer Spit. He attended the Homer Independent Baptist Church and was a long time member of the Homer Elks Lodge. He along with his wife Charlene enjoyed art.
The family wrote, "John was a devoted husband, father, grandpa, great-grandpa, friend and family man."
He was preceded in death by his parents, Frank and Nora Jump; father-in-law, Wade Pitcher; sister, Wilda Dixon; grandchildren, Andrew, Brea and Christopher; and nephew Ryan Williams.
He is survived by his wife, Charlene Ann Jump of Homer; daughter, Katheryn Walton and husband, Michael, of Klamath Falls, Ore., Laurie Bray and husband, Mike, of Klamath Falls, Ore., and Teresa Jump of Klamath Falls, Ore.; son, Bill Jump and wife, Angela, of Arlington, Texas; brother, Joe Smith and wife, Carol, of Sun Valley, Nev.; 13 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren; closest friends Jan and Joan Jonker and Wayne and Toni Barrowcliff, all of Homer; and many other family and friends.
Memorial donations can be made to either the Hospice of Homer or the Homer Elks Lodge in Homer.
Arrangements were made by Peninsula Memorial Chapel and Crematory.


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SEC Charges Bristol-Myers Squibb Executive With Insider Trading in Stock Options of Potential Acquisition Targets
Washington, D.C., Aug. 2, 2012 —
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged an executive at Bristol-Myers Squibb with insider trading on confidential information about companies being targeted for potential acquisitions. His illegal trading took place as recently as just weeks ago.
The SEC alleges that Robert D. Ramnarine, who lives in East Brunswick, N.J., made more than $300,000 in illegal profits by misusing nonpublic information he obtained while helping Bristol-Myers Squibb evaluate whether to acquire three other pharmaceutical companies. He used multiple personal brokerage accounts to illegally trade in stock options of these potential target companies. Prior to some trading, Ramnarine conducted Internet research from his Bristol computer to determine whether he could be detected by regulators. He searched for such phrases as "can stock option be traced to purchaser" and "illegal insider trading options trace" and viewed such articles as "Ways to Avoid Insider Trading." Ramnarine even viewed a press release on the SEC's website announcing an enforcement action arising from illegal trading in call options in advance of an acquisition announcement.
"Ramnarine tried to educate himself about how the SEC investigates insider trading so he could avoid detection, but apparently he ignored countless successful SEC enforcement actions against similarly ill-motivated individuals who paid a heavy price for their illegal trading," said Daniel M. Hawke, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division's Market Abuse Unit. "Executives at pharmaceutical companies or in any industry should know better than to abuse confidential, market-moving information, and our charges against Ramnarine should serve notice that when you violate insider trading laws, no matter how you scheme, you will be caught."
The SEC is seeking a court order to freeze Ramnarine's brokerage account assets. In a parallel criminal action, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey announced the arrest of Ramnarine today.
According to the SEC's complaint filed in federal court in New Jersey, Ramnarine is an executive in the treasury department at Bristol-Myers Squibb. He conducted his insider trading schemes from August 2010 to July 2012, illegally trading in stock options of Pharmasset Inc., Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc., and ZymoGenetics Inc. in advance of announcements that those companies would be acquired.
The SEC alleges that just as Bristol was finalizing its agreement with ZymoGenetics in late August 2010, Ramnarine started to buy out-of-the-money call options. A call option is a security that derives its value from the underlying common stock of the issuer and gives the purchaser the right to buy the underlying stock at a specific price within a specified period of time. Typically, investors will purchase call options when they believe the stock of the underlying securities is going up. Ramnarine made $30,551 in illegal profits by trading ZymoGenetics call options in advance of a Sept. 7, 2010 public announcement that Bristol-Myers Squibb was acquiring ZymoGenetics.
The SEC further alleges that in advance of a Nov. 21, 2011 announcement that Pharmasset would be acquired by Gilead Sciences Inc., Ramnarine bought Pharmasset call options based on material, nonpublic information that he obtained from participating in Bristol-Myers Squibb's evaluation of a possible acquisition of Pharmasset. This was part of an auction process conducted by Pharmasset and its investment bankers during the weeks before the Gilead-Pharmasset announcement. Ramnarine made $225,026 in illegal profits when he sold the calls immediately after the public announcement of Pharmasset's sale.
According to the SEC's complaint, Ramnarine very recently sold or "wrote" put options and purchased call options in advance of a June 29, 2012 announcement by Bristol-Myers Squibb that it would acquire Amylin. A put option is a security that derives its value from the underlying common stock. When investors sell or "write" puts, they obligate themselves to sell the underlying security at a certain price before the expiration date. Investors usually write puts when they believe the price of the underlying stock price is moving up. Ramnarine's trades were based on material nonpublic information that he obtained by working on financing and capital structure matters as part of Bristol's due diligence process leading up to the acquisition announcement. Ramnarine made $55,784 in illegal profits by trading Amylin put and call options in advance of the public announcement.
The SEC alleges that Ramnarine violated Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Sections 10(b) and (14)(e) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rules 10b-5 and 14e-3 thereunder. The SEC is seeking disgorgement of ill-gotten gains with prejudgment interest, a financial penalty, an officer-and-director bar, a permanent injunction, and an order freezing the assets in Ramnarine's brokerage accounts.
The SEC's investigation, which is continuing, has been conducted by Market Abuse Unit staff Mary P. Hansen, Paul T. Chryssikos, and John S. Rymas in the Philadelphia Regional Office. Supervising the investigation are Daniel M. Hawke, Deputy Unit Chief Sanjay Wadhwa, and Elaine C. Greenberg, Associate Regional Director in the Philadelphia office. G. Jeffrey Boujoukos and John V. Donnelly are handling the litigation.
The SEC has coordinated its action with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey, and also appreciates the assistance of the Options Regulatory Surveillance Authority and Federal Bureau of Investigation.


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THE VAMPIRE DIARIES Season 6 Episode 12 : Prayer For the Dying
When Liv and Luke's father arrives to town to celebrate their birthday, they try and convince him to let Jo and Kai take their place in the merge ceremony. After Tyler finds out that the merge is happening sooner than he expected, he urges Liv to let him talk to her father. Meanwhile, after Caroline's plan to cure her mother takes an unexpected and devastating turn, Elena, Stefan and Damon gather at the hospital, while Jo attempts to save Sheriff...
Episode Guide
Season 01
Season 02
Season 03
Season 04
Season 05
Season 06
Season 07
Season 08


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Kim Kardashian has something to look forward to in 2013: the birth of her first child!
The E! reality star is three months pregnant with boyfriend Kanye West's child, Us Weekly has confirmed. The musician announced their baby news while performing at Revel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Dec. 30. The "Heard 'Em Say" rapper told the crowd to "stop the music and make noise for my baby mama," referring to his girlfriend, who was in the audience.
This will be the first child for both Kim, 32, and West, 35, who began dating in the spring of 2012. They two had been friends for several years, though both were in relationships at the time. (Kim is still married to NBA player Kris Humphries; she filed for divorce in October 2011.)
VIDEO: Kanye West makes Kim Kardashian throw out all her clothes
Shortly after West shared the news with fans Dec. 30, Kim's family members expressed their happiness via Twitter. "Been wanting to shout from the rooftops with joy and now I can! Another angel to welcome to our family," tweeted Kourtney Kardashian, mom to son Mason and daughter Penelope (with partner Scott Disick). "Overwhelmed with excitement!"
Tweeted Khloe Kardashian-Odom, "Keeping secrets is hard with so many family members! Especially when you are so freaking excited! Love is everything!" The X Factor co-host's husband, Lamar Odom, added, "I'm excited for Kanye and my sister! There's nothing like bringing life into this world! Let's keep God's blessings coming!"
Kim spoke candidly about her desire to have West's children during a September appearance on The View. "At the space that I am in life now, kids are definitely something I want," she said. "I think I wanted that before. I think I fell in love so quickly and wanted that to be my life so badly but I just didn't take the time to find someone."


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It has been a source of amusement to read outraged user comments at the Pirate Bay web site, cursing the seemingly insurmountable protection that CodeMeter provides. Protecting the source and guarding the product against reverse engineering is of paramount importance for the survival of the company.
Reason Studios
Using WIBU's world class software protection technology, Reason Studios have been able to create a licensing solution that not only protects our interests, but also those of our partners who are creating add-on products for our platform. Without this system I doubt that Rack Extensions would have been anywhere near as successful as they are.
Questa schermata riduce il consumo di energia del monitor quando non sei attivo sul nostro sito. Per riprendere la navigazione è sufficiente muovere il mouse.


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A great coffee or hot chocolate set for 5 made by Meissen during the Pfeiffer period of the late 1920s. Each piece is hand painted with their pink rose design including flowers in full bloom, buds and leaves. The handles of the pot and creamer as well as the cups are in the shape of swans which is stunning. Nice floral finial to the lids.
The set consists of a large pot and its lid, a creamer, a sugar dish with its lid, 5 small plates as well as 5 cups and 5 saucers. Consider it being a set for 4 with a spare : Or one could fairly easily find another set to make it one for six people. The pieces are all in good condition with one cup having a small chip out of the side of the beak of the handle top. The sizes are as follows: The pot is 12 inches tall with a diameter of about 5.5 inches.The creamer is 6.125 inches tall with a diameter of 2.75 inches. The cups are 3.125 inches tall and 2.75 inches in diameter. The saucers are 5.75 inches in diameter and about 1.25 inches tall. The sugar dish is 4 inches tall and 3.5 inches in diameter and the small plates are 7 inches in diameter. All pieces are marked with the under glaze blue crossed swords mark as shown.
Most pieces have two cuts across the marks likely due to a few tiny black firing flaws from the making which do no distract nor are they obvious. The 5 cups and 3 saucer are first choice the other two saucers also have two cuts across the mark. All in all a stunning set and one that would look stunning when you use it for your guests. 20thC 20th century German Germany Kaffeeservice. If you like my goodies have a look at my other auctions for a lot more top maker pieces.Photos are part of the description - if you need others just let me know exactly what you are looking for and I'll take care of it speedily! Please do not send me questions on items other than my own! The item "Vintage Meissen Porcelain Pink Rose Chocolate / Coffee Set Porzellan Service" is in sale since Sunday, June 21, 2020.
This item is in the category "Pottery & Glass\Pottery & China\China & Dinnerware\Meissen". The seller is "kpmisbetter" and is located in Sparta, New Jersey. This item can be shipped worldwide.


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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Rick Scott has signed into law a measure that adds 27 new designer drugs to the state's controlled substances list.
The bill (HB 619) was signed on Wednesday. The new law now makes it a third-degree felony for someone to make or sell the drugs, or possess them with intent to sell.
Attorney General Pam Bondi explained that the drugs have street names such as "incense," ''potpourri," ''K2," ''spice" and "bath salts."
The synthetic drugs can cause hallucinations, seizures, paranoia and psychotic episodes, among other symptoms.


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Picture yourself settling back on a summer's afternoon, taking a satisfying sip of beer -- and not just any beer, but one that you brewed yourself. You might invite friends to join you, entering into a lively conversation about the virtues of hops, yeast, bitters, and malt. In time you could even perfect your own secret recipe, one that relatives and friends clamor over.
Homebrewing is surprisingly easy and fun, particularly if you start with one of the kits that are widely available in homebrewing stores and online shops. After your first experience, you might invest in your own brewing equipment, experimenting with your ingredients until you find just the right combination. Consider, for instance, the bitter beers, dark beers, porters, and fruit-flavored beers that you could try. You can even vary the alcohol strength in your final product by adjusting what you add to the wort.
People enjoy brewing their own beer for a variety of reasons. It allows them to create their own recipes, make beers that aren't available elsewhere, and to enjoy a more yeasty 'live' beer, rather than the pasteurized beer that's sold in stores. The most important trait the home brewer needs is patience, since it can take anywhere from two weeks to several monthsÛor even a yearÛto create the beer you want.
Contrary to popular belief, homebrewing doesn't require a large amount of space. Most home brewers make a five-gallon batch, and depending on space limitations, might have several batches fermenting at once, so they mature at different times. When you brew your own, be sure to keep good records, so that once you stumble upon the perfect recipe, you'll know exactly what steps to take to create that beer again and again.
Beer brewing begins with the creation of the wort (this is the name for beer that is not yet fermented). Malted grain, or malt, is soaked in hot water (60-70 degrees) until sugars are released -- this process is called mashing. The home brewer can skip this step by purchasing dry extracted malt or liquid malt. The run-off from the mash is the wort, a liquid that has all the sugars and proteins of beer, but not the yeast. The wort is then boiled with hops for flavor, then cooled. Once yeast is added to start the fermentation process, the liquid can rightfully be called beer. At this point it requires bottling, followed by a period of rest while the beer ferments and cures.
Wine and cider-making are also popular home activities. A novice wine maker can easily have a successful first outing, particularly if you use the kits that are available. Nearly any edible fruit or plant can be used to make wine -- the trick is to add the right amount of sugar to your blend (called 'must'), so that when you add yeast, the yeast will have something to feed on. Grapes are popular wine making fruits in part because they naturally contain the right amount of sugar.
As with all canning and bottling, it's crucial for safety reasons that you use sterile bottles, caps, and equipment in your beer or wine making. In the U.S., it's legal for every household to make up to 200 gallons of wine or beer each year. So why not make this the year you try brewing your own? The next time you have friends over and bring out your special blend, you'll certainly be glad you did.


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ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons adores playing the guitar. But the celebrated axeman also loves talking about guitars, which he does at length and with considerable humor and insight in this MusicRadar podcast interview.
"They say if you can make a living doing with you love, then you're a fortunate man," says Gibbons. "But for me, guitars are an obsession, my raison d'etre. So for me to get paid to indulge in my greatest passion, it goes without saying that I am truly blessed."
Early praise from Hendrix
Underscoring that statement, Gibbons received perhaps the highest blessing a musician could receive, when, as a young man fronting his first band, The Moving Sidewalks, he opened shows for the one and only Jimi Hendrix. Not only was Hendrix impressed by the teenaged Texan's command of the six string, but he called him "America's best young guitar player."
"Truly heady stuff," says Gibbons. "And when you've got the man who practically invented or reinvented what the electric guitar can do say such wonderful things about you, you have a responsibility to wear that title with pride and dignity.
"The last thing you want to do is let a guy like Jimi down. I hope he's looking down at me and still feeling good about the mighty honor he bestowed upon me."
It's safe to say he undoubedtly is. Since Gibbons formed ZZ Top in 1969, along with bassist/vocalist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard, the guitarist has released albums that would define modern electric blues-rock. Tres Hombres, Fandango!, Deguello, Eliminator, Afterburner - they're all classics, and even the introduction of synths and sequences couldn't diminish the down-and-dirty boogie-woogie stomp of "that little band from Texas."
The challenge that lies ahead
Now entering their fifth decade as a band (with a lineup unchanged!), ZZ Top are currently on a 40-city American tour with Aerosmith - "as fun a time as you're likely to have," says Gibbons - before they turn their attention to what the guitarist excitedly calls "our greatest challenge, and one that could yield incredible magic": a collaboration with producer Rick Rubin for an album scheduled for 2010.
In this exclusive MusicRadar podcast, Gibbons talks about the prospect of working with Rubin, along with the possibility of writing with modern-day bluesmen The Black Keys.
But as one might expect, guitars dominate the conversation, and Gibbons waxes voluminosly about several of his most prized pieces, most notably Pearl Gates, his treasured 1959 Les Paul (soon to be issued as a tribute model from Gibson) and the mysterious Gibson Moderne.
You'll see photos of these guitars on page 2 (along with a rare autographed shot of a young Gibbons with a certain somebody), but in the meantime, sit back, pour yourself a nice cool glass of whatever pleases you and enjoy The MusicRadar podcast with Billy Gibbons.
Audio: Download (right click and Save As...)
A Billy Gibbons photo gallery
Three versions of the infamous, mysterious Gibson Moderne
Pearl Gates, the original on the right and a prototype-in-the-making on the left
The Moving Sidewalks. Billy, second from right, with some dude who thought he could play the guitar too


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Market researcher finds beauty industry divided in the Americas
"The Americas continued to be a dynamic hemisphere for Beauty and Personal Care products in 2012 with more potential for growth in 2013," says Latin American research manager, Sean Kreidler.
The latest research finds mass cosmetics as continuing to represent over 90 percent of sales in every country in Latin America, while premium cosmetics account for 35 percent of sales in Canada and the US.
"Latin America is very active in expanding awareness with its consumer base by way of direct selling and expansion with modern store-based retailers. In North America, Canada and the USA lead product innovation and customer shopping experiences," Kreidler reveals.
Divided in terms of demand
In regards to direct sellers, Euromonitor predicts them to continue to expand in Argentina and lead the market in Bolivia. However, Brazil is said to be seeing a push toward store-based retailing, with the expansion of beauty specialist retailers.
"Direct selling represents over a quarter of all beauty and personal care sales in Latin America – the highest regional share in the world."
Meanwhile, premium products are reported as continuing to grow in Chile, Costa Rica and México and remain a priority for many consumers in Venezuela, despite poor economic conditions, even in Canada premium brands are recovering to drive growth.
In Bolivia and México, the market researcher finds product innovation as rapidly growing as Canada and the US sees advanced skin care technology development, and the demand for products containing natural ingredients present growth opportunities in Colombia, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.
Finally, Euromonitor reveals the male grooming sector as continuing to shine in Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Perú and the US; however, it warns that men's grooming might struggle in Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Ecuador where future potential lies in men increasingly making their own purchasing decisions.
Driving forces
According to the report middle income consumers are the driving force behind beauty and personal care growth throughout Latin America, most notably in Brazil and Perú.
"Sound economies are giving rise to a growing middle class in most of the region, whose expanding disposable incomes help fuel Beauty and Personal Care demand."
On the other hand, Argentina and Venezuela are found to be battling surging inflation that has eroded consumers' purchasing power.


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True, the Halbig case, if it makes its way to the Supreme Court, will present an opportunity for Chief Justice John Roberts to redeem himself from his abominably activist salvation of Obamacare. But more important, it will be an opportunity for the high court to reaffirm this nation's commitment to the rule of law.
In Halbig v. Burwell, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held that under the Affordable Care Act federal health insurance subsidies are available for policies purchased only on state exchanges and not those purchased on the federal exchange.
If the Supreme Court takes the case, it will also have a rich opportunity to slap down the out-of-control, politicized Internal Revenue Service. Under this administration, the IRS has behaved as though it were a super-legislature with authority not just to promulgate regulations beyond its narrowly prescribed statutory power, but also to change laws wholesale in order to serve the administration's policy ends.
A proper wrist slapping of the IRS might well send a long overdue message to all federal administrative agencies — take the renegade EPA, for example — that they don't have carte blanche to do whatever they decide to do.
The ACA provides for the establishment of state exchanges through which consumers can purchase health insurance. The law did not make the establishment of such exchanges mandatory, and only 14 of the 50 states did so.
The law, in a separate section, also provides for the establishment of a federal exchange through which consumers can purchase health insurance in the event their state opts not to establish an exchange.
That's just half the story. President Obama and his Obamacare architects wanted subsidies (in the form of tax credits) to be provided to people who purchase Obamacare policies. The subsidies would shift the cost of the policy from the individual to the government — thus, the proverbial "free health care."
Here's where it gets tricky. The law says the "subsidy" is available only for policies purchased through the state exchanges and not the federal exchange. Honest readers of the law and of the political considerations behind the relevant provisions must concede that the law was carefully drafted with this distinction in mind. There was a deliberate intent to make the subsidies available only for purchases through the state exchanges.
There are two salient sets of facts that make this clear. The first is the unambiguous statutory language. The law provides for subsidies to those who purchase policies from an "exchange established by the state." There is no mistaking the plain meaning of those words.
Moreover, despite multiple sections and subsections dealing with these subsidies, there is no hint that Congress intended to have them apply to policies purchased from the federal exchange.
Legally, the question should end there because it is a generally recognized rule of statutory interpretation that statutes shall first be interpreted according to the plain meaning of the statutory language. Unfortunately for the administration, if you go further and apply other rules of statutory interpretation, such as that a statute should be read as a harmonious whole, you get the same result.
There is another interpretive rule with which all statutory draftsmen and contract lawyers are intimately familiar. If the statute or a contract specifically includes language in one section but omits it in another, it is presumed to have done so intentionally.
For example, if I draft a contract to provide that the company will reimburse my client for (SET ITAL) airplane (END ITAL) travel expenses and mention no other type of travel, I understand that my client will not be reimbursed for automobile or train travel. When Congress expressly provided for subsidies for state exchange policies and did not include such a provision for federal exchange policies – even though there were separate sections covering the federal exchange — it is presumed they meant that the government would not subsidize federal exchange policies.
The second salient fact is that if we examine congressional intent beyond the words of the statute we will find that the too-clever-by-half Obama administration had a specific reason not to subsidize policies purchased through the federal exchange. They wanted to use financial coercion to incentivize states to set up exchanges.
Again, unhappily for the administration, it used this exact kind of coercion with Medicaid under the statute, providing that states that don't adopt the law's standards for Medicaid eligibility will be denied federal Medicaid funding. Even worse, we have "smoking gun" evidence from one of the administration's Obamacare gurus, Jonathan Gruber, who stated that if a state doesn't set up an exchange, its citizens won't get their tax credits.
But when 36 states thumbed their noses at Obamacare by not establishing exchanges, the autocratic IRS, on its own initiative, issued a regulation in August 2011 making the subsidies apply to policies purchased on federal exchanges.
The Supreme Court must reaffirm its commitment to the Constitution and the rule of law by affirming Halbig, making a firm statement that the law is not merely a tool for ideologically obsessed statists to twist at their capricious discretion to achieve their political ends.


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Uploaded by kingofclubllc
"Mr. Panman ( MPM ) demonstrating how the "Steelpan" was played during the late forties !!" SOURCE..............................................................................................................................
A Note From The Gull
Thank you, Mr. Panman. A moving and sweet performance from one man controlling pan, keyboard and bottle. Much respect! I am bowing low.
"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.
Blessed is all of creation
Blessed be my beautiful people
Blessed be the day of our awakening
Blessed is my country
Blessed are her patient hills.
Mweh ka allay!